Pressure is maintained on the opener cylinders through the use of a hydraulic accumulator system with adjustable down force pressures from 45.3kg to 226.8kg. The opener packing force can be increased proportionally from 31.7kg to a maximum 77.1kg.

“I would estimate between 200 and 300kg/ha in favour of paired rows,” he said.

“You can see the heads in split rows are bigger and visually in a tight finish they hang on better than when I was sowing single rows.”

Interestingly, Darren has dropped his seeding rates because, he says, of the precision seed placement of the Contour 2.

“The seeds are going where they are supposed to go and I’m down to 50-60kg/ha now compared with 70-80kg/ha a few years ago,” he said.

“I’m not getting any yield deficit and I reckon I could go to 40-45kg/ha if it was a good start to the year.”

Another feature of the Contour 2 which appeals to Darren is the “float mode” which releases pressure off all the hydraulic rams.

“In effect what you get going over patches of gravel ridges, for example, is that each tine can individually break out,” Darren said.

“And you can adjust the pressure of the press wheels on-the-go to suit varying soil conditions.”

Conversely there’s a “lock out” feature that is a one set-and-forget calibration, which is handy when you hand over to an inexperienced driver.

Sowing dry also holds no fears.

“Generally we start dry and keep going,” Darren said. “I think the bar works a bit better in the dry with better soil throw and we’re certainly getting good results incorporating Treflan between 1.8/ha and 2.5L/ha.

I’m happy with dry sowing because you can up the pressure and still get accurate seed depth.”

He designed his 4200ha mainly cereal cropping program with central filling points to enhance that productivity and usually expects to complete about 19ha an hour.

The slab design of the Morris Contour 2, with wheels outside the frame and contour-following achieved by the individual sowing modules, is a big appeal along with an easy to adjust set-and-forget depth control system.

The hydraulically-operated individual parallelogram linkage and press wheel units ensure an almost millipede action across contours and this ground-hugging is the reason why press wheels can accurately control seed depth placement.

According to Morris, the parallelogram linkage maintains a constant opener angle relative to the soil and constant opener depth in relation to the packer wheel throughout the range of travel.

The company says its double shoot boot requires less horsepower, while the single shank design has lower draft requirements than most double-shoot air hoe drills and disc drills.

Also the single shank system doesn’t have the bunching up problem between two tines.

Depth setting is accomplished by a simple notched cam and pin system – simply rotate the cam by hand and insert the pin to lock in the desired seeding depth. Optimal seeding depth ranges from 1.27cm (0.5in) to 5cm (2in) in 0.64cm (0.25in) increments.

The packer wheels are about 14cm (5.5in) in diameter to accommodate the paired row and the subsequent furrow promotes water harvesting while protecting germination plants from wind events.

More consistent furrows can be achieved with the on-the-go packing pressure which is handy to use in differing soil types. And tine pressure also can be adjusted on-the-go.